Three Poems from J.B. Stevens

My cousin made it from my uncle’s F-150 leaf spring, he gave it to me before deployment,

I’d never stabbed a man,

It is very red and smells strongly and covers my hand, only the left,

The rifle jammed, Arabian dust a puzzle with no solution,

Knives don’t jam.

White trash in some city whose name I can’t pronounce,

Or remember,

He is the Iraqi version of white trash, I need to learn that word,

A pawn like me, I wish I was dead,

So he dies.

I am not dead,

The prayer rug is covered in blood,

Who is going to feed the cow?

I used to pray I didn’t die here,

Death is peace, peace in the now,

I want go back to Georgia,

So he dies.

Knives don’t jam.

Arabian dust a puzzle with no solution.

Death is comfort.

Bullet

The bullet comes for me,

I pulled the trigger myself,

Another night of simple pain,

Drown it with Tennessee brown,

I miss my wife,

Push the hate down.

Why did I choose this shit life?

I chose wrong,

Someone else is in the bed,

My ego is the killer.

It is Leather

It is black vinyl but I tell you it is leather,

The entire War I missed this couch,

It is odd, loving a thing, missing an object,

Simple comfort, sofa and air-conditioning, home-

When I came back she was gone,

The entire world hers to roam.

The new guy doesn’t have bad dreams and cry and drink too much,

The soft embrace was still there.

Security in the familiar.

BIO:

J.B. Stevens lives in the Southeastern United States with his wife and daughter.

His writing has been featured in Mystery Tribune, Criminal Element, Tough Crime, Out of the Gutter, Close To The Bone, Thriller Magazine, Punk Noir Magazine, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and numerous other publications.